by Denis Smith
Although contemporary convention meant that reporters did not write, or newspapers publish, accounts of politicians’ private lives, Ottawa gossip soaked up stories of all kinds. Edna’s indiscretions were probably known to others in and around the Conservative caucus and the press gallery. Titillating gossip might not matter – might even be a source of fascination – when it involved a private member of parliament, but for a potential leader it could be a hindrance. Was this, perhaps, an unspoken factor in the selection of a new House leader in January 1943? Ottawa in the 1940s reflected the country in its repressed and puritan spirit. It was a place where hypocrisy was king: while a man’s infidelity could be accepted as evidence of his vigour and daring, a woman’s was shocking and probably depraved. Edna knew the conventions and prejudices of the time, and accepted most of them. Her very audacity must have caused her anguish.
The summer of 1944 was particularly difficult for Edna. The allied invasion of Europe in June meant that a victorious ending of the war was expected within months – and that meant an intensified focus on domestic politics. The government was in the fourth year of its term, and an early election could be anticipated. When John and Edna came west to Prince Albert in mid-August, he planned to begin his active campaign for re-election in Lake Centre. To assist him, John invited Bill Brunt and his wife, Helen, to stay with them. Without domestic help to clean and reopen the house, Edna suggested either that the visit be postponed or that the Brunts stay in a local hotel. John insisted. Before their arrival, Edna’s eighty-one-year-old mother began opening up the house, but soon injured her hand in the washing machine and found herself briefly confined to hospital. Edna’s niece Sheila rushed to Prince Albert from Saskatoon to take charge of both the patient and the household preparations.
Within days Edna and John arrived; the Brunts followed immediately afterwards. For a hectic week the visitors were entertained, Maren Brower was cared for, and John pursued his constituency affairs with Brunt at his side. Towards the end of the visit, Edna and her family were crushed by news that the husband of another niece had been killed in action at Caen. And then, without a pause, the whole Diefenbaker family arrived from Saskatoon for one week in the house. Once again John had refused Edna’s request to postpone the visit. By August 1944 Edna detested her imperious mother-in-law and found the cloying relationship of Mary and John intolerable; yet she kept a typically polite front as mother and son fawned on each other. But alone with Sheila, Edna broke down in tears of strain and frustration.125
Another incident, apparently that same summer, also tested the couple’s fragile equilibrium. During her housecleaning in the basement, Edna discovered John’s long-discarded military uniform, mildewed and moth-infested. Without reflection, she burned it. When she told John that evening, he responded with tears and fury: “And you did not even save my epaulets, you did not save my epaulets.” Next day at the law office, Diefenbaker raged to his secretary. “He was absolutely furious … he stormed around all day, shouting: ‘Edna burned my uniform. She burned it! I planned to be buried in it.’ ” By the end of the summer, Edna was speaking bluntly and harshly to close friends in Prince Albert about John’s short temper and selfishness.126
While many women surmounted such troubles, Edna apparently could not. She was still John’s conventional partner, determined to support and promote his career despite all her discontents. Before the summer of 1944 she was again depressed and confused, and accepted renewed sedation with tranquillizers. She began to lose her hair, one of the sources of her attractiveness, and took to wearing a turban to conceal her embarrassment.
In the spring of 1945 she suffered a breakdown and was sufficiently ill to be referred to a Toronto psychiatrist, Dr Goldwin Howland. Diefenbaker corresponded with Howland in 1945 and 1946 over the serious state of his wife’s health, but only a few of Howland’s letters can be found in the Diefenbaker papers.127 He apparently diagnosed a psychiatric illness, probably mild depression and an obsessive neurosis.128 Edna herself seemed to regard her condition as a nervous illness, perhaps the result of prolonged used of tranquillizers.129 It could also have been a sign of the menopause – a passage of life that was scarcely to be thought about in the male society of the 1940s.
John, meanwhile, was inextricably wrapped up in his political life. In April 1945 he travelled to the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco – not as a member of the Canadian delegation but as an unofficial observer who managed to wangle his way into the opening ceremony at the Opera House. On April 25 he sent Edna a postcard:
My dear –
Please keep this – because it will be stamped today. See the movies of the opening ceremony and you will – believe it or not see me on the outside side – 9 rows back from the front and in front of the speakers – 4 seats behind F.M. Smuts whose hand I shook. It’s an interesting story how I got in – Gordon Graydon figured it out – Hope you are feeling better – write me or wire me…
Love and the best130
After San Francisco, Diefenbaker returned to Canada in May to plunge into the election campaign, which had been called by Mackenzie King for June 11. Edna, although under Dr Howland’s care, took some part in the campaign. On July 10, at Edna’s request, he wrote to Diefenbaker to report that, after a relapse in June, she was in improved health. “I think we may expect from time to time, relapses, but she will finally get well.” Howland made no mention of Edna’s symptoms or of a diagnosis (both of which had presumably been discussed in earlier conversations or letters), but his letter takes for granted that he thought he was dealing with a mental rather than physical illness. The language is stilted. “I have handled the case with very careful attention, studying her every mental condition, studying all the underground condition of her mind, using every modern method of psychotherapeutic measures, using much the same methods you would use in your legal practice. I have had to judge her reactions to people and to those not living about her and I might say it is one of the hardest cases I have had, causing me great anxiety as to whether this was going to be a permanent case or not.”131
Howland now expressed an unexplained confidence in Edna’s recovery. But the balance of the letter suggested, not too subtly, that a major cause of her illness might be Diefenbaker’s own attitudes and behaviour.
I am not anxious about her recovery now, but am anxious how you will manage the case when you take over and it will depend on you more than anyone else whether she remains well or not. She is a very fine woman, indeed, and her ideals are the best and she is completely wrapped up in your interests but it would be better if she had more interests of her own. She dislikes housekeeping which is, unfortunately part of her life’s work.
I have a feeling that between now and the time the House opens in Ottawa that perhaps it would be possible for you and your wife to take a holiday together for two or three weeks. I do not feel certain whether starting her directly at work at home is quite the wisest thing after such a serious illness. Perhaps you and she might decide to have a holiday and I almost think she would sooner go to Ottawa than back at home. She was tremendously interested in your saying you might start practice in partnership in Vancouver. She said “it is the wish of my life and perhaps my husband is becoming tired of sitting on the Opposition of the House.”
This seemed to be a strong plea from Edna, conveyed through the medium of her psychiatrist, that John should abandon politics for the sake of a life more tolerable to her. In his conclusion Dr Howland emphasized Edna’s respect for, and dependence upon – or fear of – her husband. “During her whole time here I do not think she has said a single thing against you, which is very unusual for a wife. But she is terribly afraid you will be disappointed when you see her, so, for Heaven’s sake, when you do come be delighted with her condition. She does not think you realize how ill she has been. She certainly was in a poor condition when she arrived in Toronto.”132
The advice about a change of career was delivered tentatively and casually,
and was unlikely, by itself, to prompt John Diefenbaker to alter direction. At best, it might have been the starting point for more precise discussion and analysis of the couple’s difficulties. Diefenbaker either missed, or chose to ignore, Howland’s point, and there is no evidence that such discussion took place. Diefenbaker’s political life did not change. Over the summer Edna remained in a state of distress, and in the autumn the couple decided on a more radical course of treatment. Then began a long nightmare.
Diefenbaker had known of the Homewood Sanitarium at Guelph, Ontario, since at least March 1934, when its superintendent had visited the Prince Albert penitentiary to examine Diefenbaker’s client Steve Bohun before his execution.133 Dr Howland had made use of a nursing director from Homewood to assist in his observation of Edna during the summer.134 By 1945 the private psychiatric hospital, like others in North America, was treating mental disorders experimentally with doses of electric shock therapy. In late September, Diefenbaker took his wife to Homewood for further examination and possible treatment.135
Soon after her arrival in Guelph, Edna wrote John pleading for him to visit and, one way or another, to rescue her from incarceration.
Really John you must come to see the situation. Dr. Mackinnon has no interest in me whatever he wont see me. now John this is just a place for people who can afford to keep their relations out of mental hospitals.
They are practically all mental here Dear or have no home. They give shock for those who can afford it & can take it but apparently they dont want you cured here.
There is no routine at all. Oh God if I only could explain it to you Dear.
John you couldnt get well seeing what I see I thought it would only be nervous patients – but its every thing on my floor they are on their own & will be here for years, there isnt a hostess to arrange our day or walk with us. No body sleeps & every body is on pills.
You must come Ill never improve here talk about throwing your money away for no purpose you must get up at 7.30 & then stay alone as the living room is filled with people who seem to look normal but in reality they are not.
There is a sweet girl here who had too many drugs & spent 3 mos in a rest in Toronto & came to see if she could have shock but cant so is going home to-day she is the only person I can talk to normally. I can see why Dr. MacKinnon doesnt want you here for a month he is a liar & no heart. Thinks he is quite the big shot what all did you tell him he told me you had explained my case & wont let me give him my history told me frankly he didnt believe me now John you know I want my feelings back & I liked my life.
My hair has practically gone dead & is coming out completely apparently they have never had a case like this before.
If you dont come – Im going to leave Ill try home Ottawa or any place but there is nothing conducive to health here they are really tough John. How I wish I knew if it was drugs or break down no one here has had the head or vacancy I have had so I wonder if its too many drugs for years.
Howland knew his stuff when he said dont come here.
I could battle the hair get a wig if necessary Well John do something Im not committed and you know Im sane.
please please come otherwise Ill write mother & she will come I know. There must be some one who can tell why this stony feeling is here my skin is dead also my head & they must have run into like cases some where – Im not hysterical nor panicky Im reasoning it out & if you were here you would understand it just means years if you leave me dear its just a money making place John.
You must investigate Your speech was fine dear Im hungry for news no one here talks my language Dear. I think an apt with a nurse would be better & not much more.
Miss Cooper told me drugs took her feelings & taste away altho she never lost her sense of touch in her skin Sc body she said her head was stony not as bad as mine but she only had them 3 mos it was sodium amital she took every 2 hrs for 2 months a Dr gave them to her to get settled enough to work.
Now you must do something John as I definitely realize this state will never change here even you will see there is a definite change for the worse here.
If mabel were only in Toronto & could come up she would see how this environment is so injurious to one – its fine for people who are definitely mental they rave on & enjoy the place but my place is in Ottawa with you my brain is so clear its just something has gone wrong with my nervous system its either drugs or the breakdown Id like so much to see another physycriast as he would know which is wrong with me if my feelings come back you would not waste your money as for drugs they are giving me new ones that make me sleep longer & I know they are stronger Well that isnt a cure is it? They give me pheno Barb after meals & I throw it down the toilet as I have turned to stone so I dont need them at all.
Dr. MacKinnon isnt the man you think he is Dr Bough is human & believes me when I say my head has such queer sensations at times & then stony & tells me he thinks its drugs plus a depression due to my age – & he did say they were considering shock.
Please tell me you will come soon otherwise Ill go clean crazy & disgrace you Dear & so far Ive been normal through it all Ive been alone in my room now for hours & you never expected that & if you are upstairs you are confined to barred rooms & John you wouldnt let them do that when my mind is clear its all emotions & nerves & fear from my hair which is wrong & you know it.
Come come soon & try & find if I can have shock & get well.
All My Love
Edna136
But the dreadful experience continued for months. Diefenbaker did what he could to conceal Edna’s whereabouts during the fall and winter of 1945-46, and few friends knew that she was at Homewood. David Walker and Dr Herbert Bruce were exceptions; Walker apparently accompanied John and Edna when she was admitted at the end of September and visited Edna from time to time.137 He told Simma Holt that he thought there was no need for Edna’s presence at Homewood, and recalled that Diefenbaker, too, wanted her home. But Diefenbaker apparently deferred to medical advice to keep her there. Finally, in March 1946, Edna received five applications of electric shock therapy. Soon afterwards, she was released from hospital and returned with John to Prince Albert. There is no available report on the result of her treatment, but as David Walker recalled, “something made her well again.”138
The nightmarish episode left Edna embittered. She told her friend Estelle McGregor that “she had been through the most terrible treatment, that it was completely unnecessary, that she thought she had needed some rest and medical help, but not what she got.” “It can never,” she was reported to have said, “be the same again with John after what happened.” But to reveal the matter would undermine John’s political life, and she would not do that. Diefenbaker needed her loyalty – and in the absence of any conceivable alternatives, she needed him. The experience, however, left John with lingering anxieties about Edna’s mental rather than her physical health – anxieties that reflected the prejudices of the time and his own ambitions as well as more unselfish worries about her condition. In polite society, diseases of the mind (like alcoholism, venereal disease, or bastardy) were a subject of shame, a realm of popular ignorance and intolerance. John Diefenbaker shared those prejudices without reflection. His Prince Albert medical friend and political associate Dr Glen Green recalled that Diefenbaker “had a fear of mental problems … he felt it was catching, as did most people of his vintage, and so the farther he was away from it, the happier he was.”139 Above all, his career, driven by a more and more palpable longing for glory, came first. If Edna’s collapse somehow reflected her frustration with John’s single-minded quest, then that devotion allowed him scant means of confronting the problem.140
William and Mary Diefenbaker’s wedding, 1894. They are accompanied, on the left, by Mary’s sister Sadie Bridgeman and William’s brother Ulysses. (All photos reproduced courtesy of The Diefenbaker Centre unless otherwise indicated.)
Mary Diefenbaker appeared strong and confident at the age of twenty.
John, pos
ing with Elmer at the age of six or seven, already had his characteristically penetrating stare.
The Diefenbaker family in 1902.
John at the age of twelve, bundled in a buffalo coat in an oxcart with his Uncle Edward.
The artist James Flux idealized Mary Diefenbaker and her two sons on the Saskatchewan homestead, as Mary dreamed of her Highland Scots ancestors resisting dispossession. The watercolour was painted in the 1950s.
Lieutenant John Diefenbaker was twenty-one in this studio portrait of 1916. He was about to be posted overseas.
Diefenbaker received his degree of Bachelor of Laws from the University of Saskatchewan in the spring of 1919.
Diefenbaker opened his law practice in the prairie village of Wakaw, Saskatchewan, in the summer of 1919.
In 1929 Diefenbaker, as a provincial candidate in Prince Albert, expected to become attorney general of Saskatchewan if he won his seat. He lost the contest, but the Conservatives formed the government and perished in the Depression. Back row: David Burgess and Dr J.T.M. Anderson; front row: Samuel Branion, Diefenbaker, and Dr Fred MacLean.